1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an image classification method and system, and to a segmentation method, and in particular to a tool for classifying images as being indoor or outdoor images, and a tool for determining regions indicative of foreground and background, based on exposure analysis of captured and reference images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image segmentation involves digital image processing wherein an image is broken down into regions based on some predefined criteria. These criteria may be contextual, numerical, shape, size, and/or color-related, gradient-related and more. It is desired to have a technique for determining the foreground and background of digital images for numerous image processing operations. Such operations may include image enhancement, color correction, and/or object based image analysis. In the specific case of processing inside of an acquisition device, it is desired to perform such segmentation expeditiously, while utilizing suitable computations of relatively low complexity, for example, for performing calculations in-camera or in handset phones equipped with image acquisition capabilities.